Virtual divorces run rampant among online gamers

Los Angeles, CA (Sept. 14, 2011) --MapleStory, the action-packed side-scrolling
massively multiplayer online role playing game from Nexon America,
witnesses its share of in-game romances. Last year in North
America, 26,982 in-game marriages were performed with a price tag
of $25 per wedding. Of those marriages, 20,344, or 75 percent, have
since been annulled at the players’ request.

With such a high annulment rate, Nexon called upon its massive
community for insight into this phenomenon. MapleStory player
Tyler, 20, from Vancouver, B.C., shares his story:

“I was young, naive, and thought I had met ‘the
one.’ She asked me what I wanted in MapleStory for my
birthday, and I told her that the only thing I could ever want was
for her to marry me.”

After the ceremony, circumstances took a turn for the worse for
Tyler, and he quickly saw his relationship heading in the wrong
direction:

“She started saying that I wasn't the person she fell in
love with. That I had changed, and that I didn't seem to care about
her anymore.”

And that’s when things got serious. Not unlike the tossing
of a man’s possessions out of a scorned girlfriend’s
apartment window, Tyler’s MapleStory inventory was
compromised:

“I got a call from my best friend, saying that all of my
items were dropping. It was her. Less than a week later, we decided
that we needed to sever all ties between us, and we had our
marriage annulled. I haven't talked to her since.”

But Tyler wasn’t the only Nexon community member who
experienced the heartbreak of a MapleStory romance gone sour. Seth,
19, from Colorado Springs, Colorado, tells his tale:

“My former Maple spouse and I started off great; going on
party quests together, boss runs, training, helping each other
become better Maplers. Then I realized after a while that she
was only out there to get free things off of me and we got in this
conversation where she admitted to this accusation, so I decided I
would have to annul our Maple marriage.”

MapleStory, which has more than 100 million players worldwide
and can be found on Facebook (
http://apps.facebook.com/maplestoryadventures)
and on the iOS mobile platform, is well known for its in-game
marriage system that delivers substantial benefits for those
getting married. “Getting married in MapleStory can be quite
a fun event for the happy couple and their friends,” said
MapleStory producer Crystin Cox. “While it looks like our
players break up at a much higher rate than people do in real life,
at least our players are not on the hook for alimony. Couples who
break up are not required to split up their loot, virtual pets or
any enchanted items.”

The MapleStory Marriage Process

To get married in Maple World, the couple must participate in an
official process. First, they must get engaged. This requires
players to complete a quest which is rewarded with an engagement
ring. Players can use the engagement ring to send a proposal to his
or her significant other, and they must accept in order to become
engaged. If they do not accept, the player can use the same ring to
propose to someone else.

Once engaged, players must purchase a cash shop wedding ticket.
Once the ticket and the engagement ring are presented to an NPC,
players can set a date, send out invitations and make a gift wish
list. Once the couple is married, both players receive a wedding
ring, coveted in-game item that boasts impeccably strong
statistics, and the couple lives happily ever after. Or so it would
seem.

But in order for players to undergo an annulment in MapleStory,
the individuals must pay 500,000 mesos (MapleStory’s in-game
currency) along with their wedding ring. They also must wait at
least 10 days after the annulment before marrying another.

The Extended Tale of Tyler’s Heartbreak

“We met through a friend I made while playing MapleStory.
We started dating online, and everything was going great at first.
We hung out, trained, did party quests, and even leveled up
together. A few months later, the Amoria update came out, and a few
months after that, it was my birthday. I convinced my brother to
lend me the money for the NX [Nexon’s currency] to undergo
the marriage process. We invited all our friends and had a great
time. We did the Amoria PQ together all the time. We made second
characters that we only played on together. Mine was,
‘YouCom,’ hers was ‘PleteMe.’ Together,
‘YouComPleteMe.’ We even trusted each other with our
accounts and would play on each others characters.

Everything was going great for a while, and then some crazy
stuff started to happen. I was completely shocked! I thought
everything was still perfect between us…I kept telling her
we just needed to talk and figure out what had happened between us.
She started to get mad, and told me to leave her alone, that we
were over. So I left her alone. Heartbroken, I went to change my
account password, as it included her name. As I loaded the webpage,
I just barely managed to change my password before she could log
into another character. I was furious that she had betrayed my
trust. We didn't talk much after that. “

###

Editor’s Note: To learn more about the MapleStory
marriage/annulment process, please contact Ali Miller (amiller@nexon.net) to speak to a producer or Tyler or Seth about their
marriage/break-up experiences. For images, screens and video,
please visit the MapleStory folder on our large media FTP, which
can be accessed using the following login info:

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